They were in the fields at sunset, at some distance from the house, when Anne's eyes rested upon him, walking along the country road in his old robust fashion, on his way to the farm-house. She ran across the field to the fence, calling his name. Miss Lois followed, but more slowly; her mind was in a turmoil regarding his unexpected arrival, and the difficulty of making him comprehend or conform to the net-work of fable she had woven round their history.
The old priest gave Anne his blessing; he was much moved at seeing her again. She held his hand in both of her own, and could scarcely realize that it was he, her dear old island friend, standing there in person beside her.
"Dear, dear Père Michaux, how good you are to come!" she said, incoherently, the tears filling her eyes, half in sorrow, half in joy.
Miss Lois now came up and greeted him. "I am glad to see you," she said. Then, in the same breath: "Our names, Father Michaux, are Young; Young—please remember."
"How good you are to come!" said Anne again, the weight on her heart lightened for the moment as she looked into the clear, kind, wise old eyes that met her own.
"Not so very good," said Père Michaux, smiling. "I have been wishing to see you for some time, and I think I should have taken the journey before long in any case. Vacations are due me; it is years since I have had one, and I am an old man now."
"You will never be old," said the girl, affectionately.
"Young is the name," repeated Miss Lois, with unconscious appositeness—"Deborah and Ruth Young."
"I am glad at least that I am not too old to help you, my child," answered Père Michaux, paying little heed to the elder woman's anxious voice.
They were still standing by the road-side. Père Michaux proposed that they should remain in the open air while the beautiful hues of the sunset lasted, and they therefore returned to the field, and sat down under an elm-tree. Under ordinary circumstances, Miss Lois would have strenuously objected to this sylvan indulgence, having peculiarly combative feelings regarding dew; but this evening the maze of doubt in which she was wandering as to whether or not Père Michaux would stay in her web made dew a secondary consideration. Remaining in the fields would at least give time.